Page 90 of Unbound
And there, on the steps, was Adrian.
His face crumpled when he saw me. This wasn't the Jesse who'd run from his parents' house eight weeks ago. This was someone hollowed out, broken, barely recognizable.
I took one step forward and collapsed.
Adrian caught me, and I was so light now, so fragile. Bird bones and sharp angles where muscle used to be.
"I've got you," he said, but I could see in his eyes that he wasn't sure there was anything left to have. My eyes felt vacant even to myself, like no one was home behind them anymore.
Behind him, Rebecca was crying. While beside him, Professor Okonkwo looked grim and official in his suit.
"We need to get him to a hospital," Okonkwo said. "Now."
As they lifted me into the car, I whispered something. Adrian leaned close to hear.
"Max said you were real." The words came out broken, barely breath. "I didn't believe him, you were too good to be true. I wanted to die. But he was right—you came for me, like you promised.”
Adrian's tears fell on my face as they drove away from Restoration Ridge, hoping they weren't too late to save what was left of me.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember what hope felt like. Tried to remember if Adrian's hands had always been this warm, or if I was just cold all the way through now.
The last thing I saw before unconsciousness took me was the mountains disappearing in the rearview mirror. Eight weeks of hell shrinking to a dot behind us.
18
ADRIAN
"Drive faster," I said, though Okonkwo was already pushing the rental car past every speed limit.
Jesse was unconscious in the backseat, his head in my lap. I kept checking to make sure he was still breathing. Each breath was shallow, laboured, like his body had forgotten how to do basic functions.
"Is he—" Rebecca started from the front seat, then stopped herself. She'd been crying since we'd left Restoration Ridge.
"He's breathing," I said, my hand on his chest, feeling the weak rise and fall. Christ, his ribs were so prominent now. How much weight had he lost? Thirty pounds? Forty?
Okonkwo was on his phone with the hospital, calling ahead. "Yes, emergency admission. Twenty-one-year-old male, severe dehydration and malnutrition. Possible cardiac complications. We're five minutes out."
I looked down at Jesse's face. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, skin pale and drawn tight. The Jesse who'd kissed me at that debate eight weeks ago had been solid, healthy, real. This version looked like a ghost.
"I've got you," I whispered.
They took him from me the moment we arrived. Gurney, urgent voices, medical terminology I didn't understand. I tried to follow, but a nurse stopped me at the door.
"Family only."
I looked at her, this middle-aged woman with kind eyes and tired scrubs. "I am his family, and he is my family.”
She studied me—young, obviously gay, obviously devoted to the broken boy they'd just wheeled away. Something in my face must have convinced her.
"You and her," she said, nodding at Rebecca. "That's it."
The next hour was a blur of doctors and machines and words that cut like knives: severe dehydration, malnutrition, cardiac arrhythmia. Evidence of repeated electrical burns. Possible brain damage from electroshock therapy.
I collapsed into a chair outside his room. This was my fault. All of it.
If I hadn't pursued him. If I hadn't made him question everything. If I hadn't turned his world upside down for a fucking dare.
The others arrived on the first flights they could catch. Andrew, Diana, Phoenix, Elijah, Sam. My chosen family, rallying around Jesse like he'd always been one of us.
